Aftermath
Here’s a weird thing about memory. Italy was part of the Axis. But sandwiched between the evils of Germany and Japan, Italy came off as an almost accidental villain. Mussolini looked like a buffoon and his big conquest was an obscure African country most people in the US never heard of and most likely to this day couldn’t tell you what it was. Ethiopia. And I had to look it up just now because why remember it? Maybe it was the Vatican that saved Italy from true villain status. But I never much thought about it. I just read A Bell for Adano and Catch-22 and thought Italy might be a nice place to visit one day.
For me and what I was taught, the real good coming out of World War II was the Marshall Plan, the occupation of Japan, and the creation of The United Nations. In the first two cases, we spent money and time rebuilding the countries we’d just beaten in the war and helped them create functioning democracies. The United Nations was us trying save the world from the sort of devastating war we’d just endured. I thought it all spoke to the largess of America, our big heart, the ability to forgive and forget, and our interest in creating a better, safer world for everyone.
Of course, that was then and then lasted well into my 20s when I finally started back to college in 1969. But even though I fleshed out the historical details and gained a better perspective on why we did those things, I think at their core they were the right thing to do and really did give the world a fighting chance at avoiding another global disaster. Plus, I’ve been to both Germany and Japan and I can attest to the success of the Marshall Plan and the occupation because it’s hard to believe seeing them now that they were ever our enemies and that’s how rehabilitation is supposed to work.
Part 3: Living in America, an old man’s journey into his past